The Prebys Research Heroes program awards14 two-year grants, each providing $500,000, to researchers demonstrating exceptional promise in areas critical to advancing medical science, including liver, gastric, and pancreatic cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, infectious disease, and mental health, among others.

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This initiative comes at a crucial time when federal funding often overlooks high-risk, high-reward research. By stepping in to fill this gap, The Prebys Foundation and its partners hope to set a new standard for philanthropic support in science—encouraging more inclusive, exploratory, and promising research. Critically, the announcement comes as the White House released a new initiative on Women’s Health Research. The President’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Spring for Women’s Health intends to fundamentally change the trajectory of women’s health care research and radically accelerate the next generation of discoveries.

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The recipients of the grants are conducting research at key institutions in San Diego, a region increasingly recognized as a vital center for medical innovation. These institutions are at the forefront of diversifying labs and embracing a wider array of scientific questions and methodologies, thereby enriching the research community. They are: La Jolla Institute of Immunology; Salk Institute; San Diego State University; Scripps Research Institute; University of California, San Diego; and University of San Diego.

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